Socialization

Primary Socialization

Socialization is the process whereby we learn to become competent members of a

group. Primary socialization is the learning we experience from the people who raise us. In
order for children to grow and thrive, caregivers must satisfy their physical needs, including
food, clothing, and shelter. Caregivers must also teach children what they need to know in order
to function as members of a society, including norms, values, and language. If children do not
receive adequate primary socialization, they tend not to fare well as adults.

Developmental Stages

FREUD’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, believed that basic
biological instincts combine with societal factors to shape personalities. Freud posited that the
mind consists of three parts that must interact properly for a person to function well in society. If
any one of the three parts becomes dominant, personal and social problems may result. The
three parts are the id, the superego, and the ego.

1. Id: According to Freud, the id develops first. A newborn’s mind consists only of the id, which is
responsible for the satisfaction of physical desires. The id represents a human being’s most
primitive desires, and a person ruled only by the id would do everything strictly for his or her
own pleasure, breaking societal norms in the process and risking punishment.
2. Superego: As children move from infancy into childhood, their minds develop a superego, or
conscience, which encourages conformity to societal norms and values. Someone with a
hyperactive superego would be confined within a too-rigid system of rules, which would inhibit
his or her ability to live normally.
3. Ego: A healthy mind also consists of the ego, or the part of the mind that resolves the conflicts
between the id and the superego. Normally, the ego balances the desires of the id and
 superego, but when it fails, a person may have difficulty making decisions, which can lead to
behavioral problems.

MEAD’S THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIORISM

Sociologist George Herbert Mead believed that people develop self-images through
interactions with other people. He argued that the self, which is the part of a person’s
personality consisting of self-awareness and self-image, is a product of social experience. He
outlined four ideas about how the self develops:
1. The self develops solely through social experience. Mead rejected Freud’s notion that
personality is determined partly by biological drives.
2. Social experience consists of the exchange of symbols. Mead emphasized the particularly
human use of language and other symbols to convey meaning.
3. Knowing others’ intentions requires imagining the situation from their
perspectives. Mead believed that social experience depends on our seeing ourselves as others
do, or, as he coined it, “taking the role of the other.”
4. Understanding the role of the other results in self-awareness.Mead posited that there is an
active “I” self and an objective “me” self. The “I” self is active and initiates action. The “me” self
continues, interrupts, or changes action depending on how others respond.
Mead believed that the key to self-development is understanding the role of the other. He also
outlined steps in the process of development from birth to adulthood:

COOLEY’S THEORY OF THE LOOKING-GLASS SELF

Like Mead, sociologist Charles Horton Cooley believed that we form our self-images
through interaction with other people. He was particularly interested in how significant others
shape us as individuals. A significant other is someone whose opinions matter to us and who
is in a position to influence our thinking, especially about ourselves. A significant other can be
anyone, such as a parent, sibling, spouse, or best friend.
 Cooley’s theory of socialization involves his notion of the looking-glass self.The looking-
glass self refers to a self-image that is based on how we thinkothers see us. He posited a
three-step process in developing this self:

Step 1
We imagine that a significant other perceives us in a certain way.

Step 2
We imagine that he or she makes a judgment about us based on that perception.

Step 3
We form a self-image based on how we think our significant other sees us

PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget began to investigate how children think when he was
giving them intelligence tests. According to Piaget, the way children think changes as they
mature physically and interact with the world around them. Piaget identified four periods of
development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

Stage 1: Sensorimotor Period (birth to roughly age two): During this stage, children learn by
using their senses and moving around. The main achievement of this stage is object
permanence, which is the ability to recognize that an object can exist even when it’s no longer
perceived or in one’s sight

Stage 2: Preoperational Period

(age two to seven): During this period, children keep getting better at symbolic thought, but they
can’t yet reason. According to Piaget, children aren’t capable of conservation during this
stage. Conservation is the ability to recognize that measurable physical features of objects,
such as length, area, and volume, can be the same even when objects appear different.

Stage 3: Concrete Operational Period

(age seven to eleven): During this period, children start to become capable of performing
mental operations or working problems and ideas through in their minds. However, they can
perform operations only on tangible objects and real events.

Stage 4: Formal Operational Period

 (age eleven through adulthood): During this period, children become capable of applying mental
operations to abstract concepts. They can imagine and reason about hypothetical situations.
From this point on, they start to think in abstract, systematic, and logical ways.

KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Lawrence Kohlberg was interested in moral reasoning, or why people think the way they do
about what’s right and wrong. Influenced by Piaget, who believed that the way people think
about morality depends on where they are in terms of cognitive development, Kohlberg
proposed that people pass through three levels of moral development:
1. The preconventional level: Children ascribe great importance to the authority of adults.
2. The conventional level: Children want to follow rules in order to get approval.
3. The postconventional level: People are more flexible and think in terms of what’s personally
important to them. Only a small proportion of people reach this last stage of moral reasoning.
Psychologist Carol Gilligan argues that Kohlberg’s theory was inaccurate because he studied
only boys. Gilligan posits that girls look beyond the rules of morality to find the caring thing to
do, even if that action breaks a preexisting rule. Girls and women are also less likely to judge an
individual’s actions as wrong because they see the complexities in relationships better than men
do.

Criticisms of Development Theories

Each of the theories of development has flaws. Freud’s theories have always been controversial
and are criticized today because they seem very male-centered. Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development is useful, but not all people reach the formal operational stage. Likewise, not all
people reach Kohlberg’s postconventional level of moral reasoning.

Agents of Socialization

People, groups, and experiences that influence our behavior and self-image are agents of
socialization. Common agents of socialization for children include family, school, peer groups,
and the mass media.
 Resocialization

The primary socialization received in childhood is just one part of the lifelong
socialization process. Adults go through a process of resocialization, which is the learning of
new norms and values that occurs when they join a new group or when life circumstances
change dramatically. Learning new norms and values enables people to adapt, though newly
learned things may contradict what was previously learned. Most instances of resocialization
are mild modifications, such as adapting to a new work environment.

The Drama of Life

Erving Goffman also developed the concept of dramaturgy , the idea that life is like a never-
ending play in which people are actors. Goffman believed that when we are born, we are thrust
onto a stage called everyday life, and that our socialization consists of learning how to play our
assigned roles from other people. We enact our roles in the company of others, who are in turn
enacting their roles in interaction with us. He believed that whatever we do, we are playing out a
role on the stage of life.

Total institutions are environments in which people are isolated from mainstream society and
expected to adhere to rigid rules. They demand resocialization. Some examples of total
institutions are prisons, mental institutions, and the military.

Anticipatory Socialization

 When we learn new norms and values in anticipation of a future role, we are
practicing anticipatory socialization.
 Practicing new norms in advance makes the transition easier and lets us know whether the role
is right for us.
 Gender Socialization

 Gender socialization is the tendency for boys and girls to be socialized differently. The impact
of gender socialization can be seen in family, education, and career choice.

Economy

The economy is the institution that provides for the production and distribution of goods and
services, which people in every society need. Sometimes they can provide these things for
themselves, and sometimes they rely on others to provide them. When people rely on others for
goods or services, they must have something to exchange, such as currency (in industrialized
societies) or other goods or services (in nonindustrialized societies).

Macrosociology vs. microsociology

Sociologists use two approaches when studying society. In macrosociology, sociologists

analyze large-scale social forces, such as institutions. They identify and analyze the structure of
societies. The second approach sociologists use ismicrosociology, the study of social
interaction. These sociologists focus on face-to-face interaction, how people act around others.
This method is focused more on individuals than groups.

Economic Systems

The two dominant economic systems in the world are capitalism and socialism. Most societies
have varying blends of the two systems. Common hybrids of capitalism and socialism are
welfare capitalism and state capitalism.

Capitalism is a system under which resources and means of production are privately owned,
citizens are encouraged to seek profit for themselves, and success or failure of an enterprise is
determined by free-market competition.

Socialism is a system under which resources and means of production are owned by the
society as a whole, rights to private property are limited, the good of the whole society is
stressed more than individual profit, and the government maintains control of the economy.
Welfare capitalism is a system that features a market-based economy coupled with an
extensive social welfare system that includes free health care and education for all citizens.

Example: Sweden allows private business ownership, but the government controls a
significant part of the economy. High taxes support an extensive array of social welfare
programs.

State capitalism is a system under which resources and means of production are privately
owned but closely monitored and regulated by the government.

Example: South Korea’s government works closely with the country’s major companies
to ensure their success in the global marketplace.

Government

A government is an institution entrusted with making and enforcing the rules of a society as
well as with regulating relations with other societies. In order to be considered a government, a
ruling body must be recognized as such by the people it purports to govern. A person or group
that considers itself the leading body of a society has no power if the members of the society do
not recognize the person or group as such.

Types of Governments

Monarchy is a political system in which a representative from one family controls the
government and power is passed on through that family from generation to generation. Most of
the world’s monarchies are constitutional monarchies, in which the reigning member of the
royal family is the symbolic head of state but elected officials actually do the governing. Many
European countries have constitutional monarchies.

Democracy is a political system in which citizens periodically choose officials to run their
government.

Authoritarianism is a political system that does not allow citizens to participate in government.
 Example: Zimbabwe is controlled by an authoritarian leader whose human rights
violations and disastrous economic policies have brought on international condemnation.
However, not all authoritarian governments are outcasts. China has an authoritarian
government, but it is a member of the World Trade Organization and a major player in
international politics.

Authoritarian or Totalitarian?
There is disagreement among theorists about the exact difference between authoritarianism and
totalitarianism. Both tend to use brutal tactics to suppress perceived opposition. Totalitarian
governments, however, extend their control into virtually all aspects of people’s lives and feature
a “cult of personality” around their leader.

Totalitarianism is a political system under which the government maintains tight control over
nearly all aspects of citizens’ lives.

Example: Cambodia under the regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from 1976 to
1978 was totalitarian. Under the banner of socialism, Pol Pot attempted a radical
reformation of Cambodia.

Marriage

Marriage, a foundation of family life, exists in all cultures, with some variations:

 Endogamy: Marriage between members of the same category, class, or group

 Exogamy: Marriage between members of different categories, classes, or groups
 Monogamy: Marriage between one man and one woman
 Polygamy: Marriage between one man and more than one woman
 Polyandry: Marriage between one woman and more than one man
 In some cultures, after marriage, a couple lives in the wife’s family’s household—a practice
called matrilocality. When couples live in the husband’s family’s household, the practice is
called patriolocality. If they go out and get their own place to live, they practice neolocality.

Religion

Religion is a social institution that answers questions and explains the seemingly inexplicable.
Religion provides explanations for why things happen and demystifies the ideas of birth and
death. Religions based on the belief in a single deity are monotheistic. Those that encompass
many deities are polytheistic.

Major World Religions

Most of the world subscribes to one of the following religions:

 Christianity: The most widespread world religion, Christianity derived from Judaism. It is based
on the belief that Jesus Christ was the son of God and the redeemer of mankind. There are
many different Christian denominations.
 Islam: Followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslims believe that the true word of God was
revealed to the prophet Muhammad around 570 a.d. God in Islam is the same god as the
Christian and Judaic deity.
 Judaism: Judaism is a monotheistic religion that predates Christianity, built on the belief that
they are the “chosen people” of God.
 Hinduism: Hinduism is the oldest major world religion, dominant in India. Hindus do not worship
a single person or deity but rather are guided by a set of ancient cultural beliefs. They believe in
the principle of karma, which is the wisdom or health of one’s eternal soul. Karma can be
strengthened with good acts and harmed by bad acts. Hindus believe that karma plays a role in
reincarnation, a cycle of continuous rebirth through which, ideally, the soul can achieve spiritual
perfection. The state of a person’s karma determines in what form he or she will be reborn.
 Buddhism: Buddhists, most of whom live in Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma, follow the
teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher of the sixth century b.c.e. Buddhism, like
Hinduism, does not feature any single all-powerful deity but teaches that by eschewing
materialism, one can transcend the “illusion” of life and achieve enlightenment.

Types of Religious Groups

Sociologists group religious organizations into three categories: church, sect, and cult.

 A church is a religious group integrated with society.

Example: The Roman Catholic Church is well integrated in the society in Spain.
 A sect is a religious group that sets itself apart from society as a whole.
Example: The Amish of Pennsylvania are a classic sect. Though Christian, they choose to set
themselves apart from the rest of society by their lifestyle, which eschews many aspects of
modernity.
 A cult is a religious group that is outside standard cultural norms, typically centered around a
charismatic leader.
Example: The People’s Temple, a cult that emerged in the late 1970s, was led by a man
named Jim Jones. Jones started his cult in San Francisco, then convinced several hundred
followers to move with him to Jonestown, Guyana. He claimed to be a god and insisted on strict
loyalty. In 1978, he and 913 of his followers committed mass suicide

The Rise of Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is a strict, literal adherence to religious doctrine accompanied by a rejection of
intellectualism and worldliness. All religions can experience a rise in fundamentalism. Among
Southern Baptists, for example, fundamentalism has been on the rise. The Taliban regime in
Afghanistan adhered to fundamentalist Muslim doctrine.

What Is Deviance?

 Deviance is any violation of society’s norms.

 Each society defines deviance differently. Deviance is a relative issue and may differ based
on location, age, social status, and individual societies.
 Social control is a way society has of encouraging conformity to norms. It consists of positive
and negative sanctions.
 Positive sanctions are socially constructed expressions of approval.
 Negative sanctions are socially constructed expressions of disapproval.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

 The symbolic interactionist perspective is one of the main frameworks that sociologists use
to analyze society. Symbolic interactionists view society as a byproduct of everyday social
interaction.
 Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association asserts that deviance is a learned
behavior that people learn from the different groups with which they associate. Some people
form deviant subcultures based on a shared deviance.
 According to William Reckless’s control theory, people have two control systems to keep
them from acting outside society’s norms: inner and outer controls. Inner controls are
internalized thought processes such as conscience. Outer controls include people who
influence us.
 Travis Hirschi elaborated on control theory and identified four factors that make individuals
more or less likely to commit deviance. These factors
are attachment, commitment, involvement, andbelief.
 Howard Becker’s labeling theory posits that deviant behavior is that which society labels as
deviant.
 Edwin Lemert distinguished between primary deviance, the initial act, and secondary
deviance, the repeated deviance that occurs in response to people’s reaction to the primary
deviance.
 William Chambliss’s study of boys he called the Saints andRoughnecks showed the power of
labeling.
 Structural Functional Theory

 Another sociological framework, the structural functional theory, focuses on society as a

whole rather than the individuals within society.
 Deviance is a normal and necessary part of any society.
 Émile Durkheim said that deviance fulfills four functions for society: affirmation of cultural
norms and values, clarification of right and wrong, unification of others in society, and bringing
about social change.
 According to Robert Merton’s strain theory of deviance, when people are prevented from
achieving culturally approved goals through institutionalized means, they experience strain that
can lead to deviance.
 Denied access to institutionalized means to success, poor people turn to illegitimate
opportunity structures.
 Merton identified five reactions to goals and institutionalized
means:conformists, innovators, ritualists, retreatists, and rebels.
Conflict Perspective

 The conflict theory is Karl Marx’s theoretical paradigm that views society as struggle between
groups over limited resources.
 Conflict theory identifies two categories of people in industrialized societies: the capitalist
class and the working class. Those in positions of wealth and power make up the capitalist
class. The working class sells its labor to the capitalist class.
 The two classes are always in conflict with one another. Capitalists establish the norms of
society; laws support them.
 Members of the capitalist class are less likely to be considered deviant because they make laws
to benefit themselves.
 Members of the elite are more likely to commit white-collar crime, nonviolent crime committed
in the course of their occupations.
 According to Alexander Liazos, people we commonly label as deviant are also relatively
powerless.
 Crime

 The three general categories of crime are crimes against the person, crimes against
property, and victimless crimes.
 Age, gender, social class, and race and ethnicity are categories that sociologists use to create a
criminal profile.

The Origins of Social Stratification

 All modern societies are stratified, arranged hierarchically into layers due to an unequal
distribution of society’s rewards.
 Hunting and gathering societies had no social stratification because all members had to produce
food and share it.
 Stratification arose with job specialization that began in pastoral and horticulture societies. Not
everyone in the society needed to be involved in food production.
 Rise of industrialized societies led to increased stratification as the difference between the
haves and the have-nots grew.
 Some improvement in working conditions created a middle class.
 New technologies created a new social group, skilled workers.
 The new technology used in postindustrial societies contributed to increased worldwide
stratification.
Historical Stratification Categories

 Historical stratification systems include slavery, the estate system, and indentured servitude.
 Slavery is a system of stratification in which one person owns another.
 The estate system, prevalent in the Middle Ages, was a three-tiered system composed of
the nobility, clergy, and commoners.
 Some commoners sought new opportunities in the New World and agreed to indentured
servitude to get there. Unlike slavery, in which the enslaved have no choice, indentured
servants agree to sell their bodies or labor to someone for a specified period of time.
 Modern Stratification Systems

 Slavery still exists as a stratification system.

 The caste system is based on ascribed status, which is a condition of birth, and allows little or
no possibility for mobility.
 India’s caste system is based on a belief in reincarnation, the belief that while the physical
body dies, the soul of a person is immortal and goes on to be reborn into another body.
 People in castes must marry within their own caste. This practice is known as endogamy.
 Social mobility is an important characteristic of the class system, which is based on achieved
status.
 The United States has a class system of stratification.
Theories of Stratification

 Karl Marx argued that there were only two classes of people in any capitalist society:
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He believed that the proletariat would eventually realize
they were being exploited by the bourgeoisie and would rise up in revolution.
 Max Weber argued that owning property was only part of determining a person’s social
class. Power and prestige were equally important.
 Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore believed that stratification served an important function for
society. It provided greater rewards to people willing to take more complex jobs.
 Melvin Tumin disagreed, arguing that all societies are notmeritocracies, systems of
stratification in which positions are given according to individual merit. Gender and a
family’s wealthcontribute to social class.
The Stratification System of the United States

 A person’s socioeconomic status (SES) is based on education, occupation, and income.

 These categories are not always reliable predictors of social class.
Social Classes in the United States

 Sociologists have identified six social classes in the United States.

 The upper class, which makes up about one percent of the U.S. population, generally consists
of those with vast inherited wealth (sometimes called “old money”).
 The category called new money includes rich people whose wealth is relatively new. This class
makes up about 15 percent of the population.
 The middle class, about 34 percent of the population, includes people who work at professional
or white-collar jobs.
 Members of the working class, about 30 percent of the population, often work at blue-
collar jobs.
 The working poor are people who have little to no job security and who, despite working two or
more jobs, barely earn enough money to survive.
 People at the poverty level lack the means to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, and
shelter.
Poverty in America

 A staggering number of Americans currently live below the poverty level.

 Many people living in poverty are women. The feminization of poverty refers to the increasing
number of female-headed households living at or below the poverty level.
 William Julius Wilson found that poverty is concentrated in inner cities and the rural South.
 Poverty exacts a high emotional and physical toll on individuals.
 According to Oscar Lewis, poor people do not learn the norms and values that can help them
improve their circumstances, hence they get trapped in a culture of poverty.

Global Stratification

 Societies are stratified in relation to one another.

 The three broad categories of global stratification are most-industrialized
nations, industrializing nations, and least-industrialized nations.
 Each category differs in wealth, power, and prestige.
 Theories of global stratification include colonialism, world system theory, neocolonialism,
and multinational corporations.
 Colonialism occurs when a powerful country invades a weaker country in order to exploit its
resources.
 According to Wallerstein’s world system theory, as societies industrialized, capitalism
became the dominant economic system, which led to the globalization of capitalism.
 Harrington’s theory of neocolonialism argues that most industrialized nations tend to
politically and economically exploit less developed countries.
 Multinational corporations help maintain the global stratification system.

Source: sparknotes sociolog